Your mind is like a garden. Your thoughts are the seeds. You can grow flowers or you can grow weeds.

The real purpose of Zen is to see things as they are, to observe things as they are, and to let everything go as it goes.

Where ignorance is our master, there is no possibility of real peace.

Should a person do good, let him do it again and again. Let him find pleasure therein, for blissful is the accumulation of good.

The farther you enter into truth, the deeper it is.

Compassion is not just about being kind to others. It's about being kind to ourselves as well.

The secret of happiness lies not in getting what we want, but in learning to want what we already have.

Through understanding emptiness, one does not become proud of one's virtues, just as one does not become proud of building a castle in the sky.

The knowledge of dissolution comes when you see both the noting mind and noted object dissolving together.

If in our daily life we can smile, if we can be peaceful and happy, not only we, but everyone will profit from it. This is the most basic kind of peace work.

Through our eyes, the universe is perceiving itself. Through our ears, the universe is listening to its harmonies. We are the witnesses through which the universe becomes conscious of its glory, of its magnificence.

The mind that sees its own nature becomes free from all extremes.

The greatest obstacle to meditation is our expectation about what it should be.

The path is the goal. Every step of the journey is the journey.

The more we witness our emotional reactions and understand how they work, the easier it is to refrain.

The challenge in meditation is not to eliminate thinking but to understand the nature of thought itself.

The fundamental delusion of humanity is to suppose that I am here and you are out there.

When you practice zazen you should not try to attain anything. You should just sit in the complete calmness of your mind and not rely on anything.

Every experience is an opportunity to practice awareness.

Reality is only a Rorschach ink-blot, you know.

Meditation is not about getting rid of thoughts; it's about changing the way we relate to them.

What we call "I" is just a swinging door which moves when we inhale and when we exhale.

The object of meditation and the mind which knows it must be noted as they occur. If they are not noted, desire arises and disturbs concentration.

Love is the wish that others be happy, and compassion is the wish that they be free from suffering.

Trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own teeth.

As surely as there is a voyage away, there is a journey home.

Work diligently. Diligently. Work patiently and persistently. Patiently and persistently. And you're bound to be successful. Bound to be successful.

The Four Noble Truths are not mere doctrinal propositions but a framework for understanding and transforming our lives.

Enlightenment is like the moon reflected on the water. The moon does not get wet, nor is the water broken.

Our task is to learn to see clearly what is happening in each moment, rather than be lost in our reactions and judgments.

When you see forms or hear sounds fully engaging body-and-mind, you intuit dharma intimately.

Anxiety and excitement are the same emotion. The only difference is our attitude toward the experience.

The practice is like peeling an onion. Layer after layer of delusion is removed through continuous mindfulness.